| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.3 pm
Mr. Christopher Leslie (Shipley): I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech today, not only as the youngest Member of the Parliament but as the first Labour Member for Shipley since Arthur Creech Jones was elected in 1935.
I am particularly delighted to represent Shipley, because I have always lived locally. I was brought up and attended school in Bingley, and I currently live in Saltaire. It is a fantastic constituency, and to describe it simply as Shipley obscures the diversity of the area. Shipley town is the largest settlement, but the Aire valley also encompasses Bingley town, which I have represented on the local council for three years, Baildon and other villages such as Denholme, Cullingworth, Harden and Wilsden, and Menston and Burley in the Wharfe valley.
As tradition holds, I should like to pay tribute briefly to my predecessor, Sir Marcus Fox, who was certainly a high-ranking parliamentarian as chairman of the 1922 Committee. Whatever else may be said, he served his party well and his influence in Government circles was reputedly significant. Today, I read the maiden speech of
my predecessor, which was made in January 1971--18 months before I was born. I am sorry that I missed it. He discussed the issue of transport, which is ironic because, 26 years later, it is still a central issue in the economic development and the environmental quality of the Aire valley and the Bradford district. Although the need for the construction of the Bingley relief road in my constituency has been recognised for many years, the previous Conservative Government could never quite complete the scheme. It is now awaiting its fate under the private finance initiative. I will press for its early completion.
The Gracious Speech contained many proposals which will be of direct benefit to my constituents. It is so refreshing to be able to praise the Government, having all my life known only of the harm and injustice inflicted by Conservative Administrations. I am determined to try my best to ensure that for the rest of my life the Government represent the many, not the few. In particular, I am delighted to hear that immediate action is being taken to create employment for young people, who increasingly leave school and university with no option of stable work or long-term careers. In fact it is a struggle for many young people even to get their foot in the door. Age discrimination can cut both ways, and unless young people can obtain sufficient work experience the quality of their academic ability and skills is almost useless.
Through the implementation of the windfall levy on the excessive profits of the privatised utilities such as Yorkshire Water, which has paid not one penny in corporation tax since its privatisation, young people of my generation will be given a helping hand into work. They will have the potential of six months' real employment--a move that will dramatically improve the longer-term job prospects of young people.
For too long, the plight of ordinary working middle- class people has been ignored by the uncaring laissez-faire attitude of the previous Government. The need for a catalyst to spur the job market to move in the right direction has at long last been recognised. I am proud to be playing my part in this historic Parliament, which will benefit so many people by channelling resources from those who have enough already to those who need them most of all.
The transfer of resources to more productive benefit is the theme of the Queen's Speech. By working to shift the enormous budget spent on welfare costs and to transform it into increased opportunities for work and wealth creation, the emphasis on long-term economic sustainability is clear. It makes good, plain common sense to see public resources used for investment and not for more short-term consumption.
Investing in education is the key to unlocking the great competitive and inventive capacity that used to be the hallmark of British industry. By pursuing investment in the health service and infrastructure of our country we can not only create work projects in the medium term but upgrade the living standards of all our people so that we enter the new millennium equipped for new challenges, with our heads held high.
I am pleased to see that the new Government are able actively to promote the proper balance between rights and responsibilities in employment. Giving small firms the statutory right to charge interest on the late payment of debts is a long-overdue initiative, which was welcomed with great acclaim in my constituency. Moreover,
the introduction of a national minimum wage will signify the Government's strong commitment to those who are in low-paid employment. That will help to create new jobs not only by boosting spending power but by helping employers to see that long-term profitability is achieved by upgrading production processes and new technology and not by pursuing a policy of short-term asset stripping, redundancies and lower wages.
When considering the direction of the economy over the long term, the role of new technology cannot be overstated. In an increasingly competitive global market, maintaining flexibility in the production process is achieved by the combination of a highly skilled work force and the capacity to adapt products at speed, retain high quality and meet new demand in new markets. Frequently, that essential adaptability of the production process is aided by new technology, either delivering information, improving design or making efficiencies in the production process. I am therefore extremely glad that the new Labour Government plan, among other things, a university for industry, to help to disseminate the latest technological and vocational training and advice to British firms.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath):
I am absolutely delighted to follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Leslie). It is perhaps somewhat appropriate that I do so as, when I entered the House five years ago, I came having defeated a former chairman of the Conservative party. The hon. Member for Shipley enters the House having defeated a former chairman of the 1922 Committee. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Sir Marcus Fox will be a very hard act to follow. However, I think that other hon. Members will acknowledge that the quality of his speech and the confidence of his delivery show that the hon. Member for Shipley will be well up to the task.
I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) to his new post as Deputy Speaker. I am sure that we can look forward to your wise guidance on many occasions, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While on the subject of congratulations, before the new Secretary of State for Education and Employment sneaks out, I wish to give him my best wishes and congratulate him on his appointment. I also congratulate the Government's Front-Bench team on their appointment.
The Secretary of State knows only too well that he has a difficult task, but many of us believe that, like the hon. Member for Shipley, he is well up to the task. He and his Front-Bench team have made a remarkably rapid start in beginning to undo some of the damage that has been done over 18 years owing to misguided Conservative dogma and misguided Conservative rule.
I pay tribute to the new Secretary of State on the tone and substance of the letter that he recently sent to head teachers and governors in our schools. I particularly applaud his desire to
Of course, we all welcome the Government's new commitment to lifetime learning; but, without an additional commitment to increase funding for education, it may take a lifetime to achieve that ambition. If the country is to succeed in the increasingly global market, we must invest in its most important resource and increase funding for the education and training of its people. However, judging by the Queen's Speech, it would appear that the new Government believe that increased funding for education is too high a price to pay for our children's future. We have been told--indeed the country has been warned--that for the next few years at least this Government intend to stick to the previous Government's spending targets.
I hope that the Secretary of State will intervene in my speech--or perhaps the winding-up speech will provide an answer. The previous Chancellor's Red Book on the Budget in November last year contains figures to which the new Government say they will stick. A table on page 124 shows that in the forthcoming financial year there will be less, not more, money for education. It would be helpful if the Secretary of State would confirm that those are the facts and it is his Government's intention to stick to those figures. It would be even more helpful if the Secretary of State would go a stage further. On many occasions, he has said that it is the Government's intention over time--we acknowledge that it will have to be over time--to increase the percentage of gross domestic product spent on education. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, if there is to be even a modest increase in the percentage of GDP from its current 4.7 per cent. to, let us say, 4.9 per cent., that will require an additional £6 billion a year to be spent on education? It would be helpful to know where the Secretary of State will find that additional money.
If standards are to rise, as the Secretary of State wants, extra funds are needed and they are needed now. Without the basic tools to do the job--books, equipment and decent classrooms in which to work--raising standards will be an uphill struggle for any teacher. The Secretary of State has said on a number of occasions that it is his intention to raise standards. He also said in an article in The Independent on Sunday on 23 February 1997 that he intends to
"work in genuine partnership . . . With everyone involved in the Education Service to bring about substantial improvements in standards, achievements and equality of opportunity for all."
We wish him well in achieving that desire. He would do well to listen to the hon. Member for Shipley, who referred specifically to the need for significant investment in education if we are to succeed. I say to the new Secretary of State that we cannot fix a leaking school roof with fine words, fill a child's schoolbag with letters to head teachers or surf the information super-highway on broken desks. Promises without price tags do not mean a thing; there is no bargain basement in education because, as we all know, good-quality education costs money.
"lay down from the centre exactly how reading should be taught."
Let me raise a further note of caution with the Secretary of State, for whom I have enormous respect. He should remember that it is not politicians who will raise
standards, but the professionals. Politicians can give teachers the framework and the money to do the job, but they cannot take over that job from teachers and do it themselves. We should no more believe the Secretary of State's claim that he will raise standards in education than we should believe him if he offered us a cure for the common cold. There is more than a hint of danger that the Government seem to believe that they know best how teachers should organise their classes and even how teachers should teach. We believe that those are matters best left to the professionals.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |